


Broken Solitude

by levitatethis



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Reality, Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-17
Updated: 2010-05-17
Packaged: 2017-10-09 12:49:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/87673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levitatethis/pseuds/levitatethis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mohinder gets sick and no one knows what to do</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken Solitude

_Everybody knows that the dice are loaded   
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed   
…   
That's how it goes   
Everybody knows   
_**-Leonard Cohen, _Everybody Knows_   
**  
It had started with a persistent cough.

From an ever-present tickle that Mohinder could not dismiss by clearing his throat, it had developed into a chest heaving assault from the inside out.

Initially it was easy to relegate to the bottom of his list of concerns as a cold he simply could not shake. But then he could not escape Molly's worried eyes watching him doubled over in his desk chair trying to suck in air as fast and hard as it escaped his strained body.

Her small hand on his back, rubbing comforting circles in place while repeating, _"Mohinder? Are you okay?"_ should have been enough for him to put himself first for the time. Instead he had squashed her concerns with repetitions of, _"I'm fine, really. Just a tickle in my throat,"_ or _"It's a silly cold—I just need some rest."_

Still the cough did not go away, it got worse, and Mohinder never rested, driven by the fear of what might slip by him if he missed even one day at The Company.

Ignoring the quietly nagging voice in the back of his mind, Mohinder dragged himself on the subway to work each day. Making note of how easily the patience of strangers could be tried was an unfortunate side effect of his increasingly uncertain state. One or two coughs garnered a sympathetic glance, any more drew a collection of mixed looks; mostly worried for what unnamed bugs he was releasing into the enclosed space they were always tainted with irritation at his unhealthy interruption into their self-imposed isolation.

Vaguely apologetic looks became part of his repertoire, as he grew aware of the discomfort he caused everyone else. Strangers expressed opinions in their silence. It was his friends Mohinder could not ignore. They would not let him, their carefully masked voices still garnished with concern and then panic reached out to him without raising the red flags practically twirling in their hands.

After all with the exception of the cough he seemed fine. Measured concern was shown by them, no more weight assigned to it that would then distract from the larger issues at hand.

As usual Mohinder directed his focus into his research. For a time he was able to remain convinced it was the never-ending work that kept him up at night, not the invisible constriction he felt tighten around his chest whenever he lay down.

Excessive work became the unofficial prognosis instead of the symptom. Going through the motions did not preclude Mohinder from secretly testing his own blood to rule out the miniscule possibility that he had somehow contracted the virus his blood had so easily cured before.

He had already known the answer but the test result that should have offered relief only served to cloud his mind. No virus; it meant something else was having its way with his body.

It was the not knowing that scared him most, that began the construction of protective walls not only to keep his drumbeat of worries inside but to ensure he did not place them at the feet of those he knew would then put him before the battle that would not wait for any of them.

It only it was as simple as feigning ignorance. Being forced to continue working from home had come at Bob's unwavering insistence. Mohinder could hardly argue the order, not with the decrease in Company staff wanting to be in his proximity and not with the eye watering, scratching throat fit that hit at that precise moment, as if the universe was conspired with Bob against him.

The apartment-as-lab came to exist under the pretense of making life functional for Mohinder. The thinly veiled imposition of quarantine, however, was crystal clear and Mohinder had little choice but to accept the sentence handed down.

The sound of his lone feet shuffling along the apartment floor was the torturous equivalent of a clock ticking down, each successive sound getting louder in a crawl towards finality. To drown out the internal breakdown Mohinder occupied his mind with research samples sent over almost daily from The Company by whichever lab assistant had drawn the short straw for that week.

When his mind refused to handle the blotches of cells and microbes he settled on his bed with a book or in front of the television flipping through channels or at his desk writing letters to Molly.

Twenty letters for twenty days, since Matt had moved Molly out with him at Mohinder's request. The order had been at the back of Mohinder's mind for a while, Peter and Matt showing up on the day he had made his final resolution was nothing more than good timing.

_"You look fine," Matt said confusedly sitting at the kitchen table. _

"Do you have any idea what it is?" Peter asked with concern.

A sigh of resignation had wrestled itself from Mohinder's lips.

"No," he answered. "Three doctors and I'm still totally healthy except for this damn cough."

"And it's getting worse?" asked a worried Matt.

"So it would seem," Mohinder replied and before Peter could ask a question he continued.

"Honestly, most of the time I feel fine, but when it kicks in I—have trouble breathing and…"

"Is it-," Matt began.

"Contagious?" Peter finished.

"You already know the answer to that if you're both sitting here," Mohinder remarked with annoyance.

Embarrassed Peter quickly and apologetically explained, "We had to ask…officially."

Mohinder squeezed his eyes shut as he felt the beginning of another attack. Just a few coughs at first and then they were one after the other. Mohinder raised his hand in a gesture indicating it would pass, but his eyes started to water and his throat was already on fire.

"Mohinder?" Peter and Matt had spoken in unison.

Pushing his chair back Mohinder began coughing more violently until the force of being doubled over brought him off his chair and to his knees on the floor.

Jumping up Peter kneeled next to him grabbing Mohinder around the chest to hold steady his shaking body. A few steps behind, Matt rushed over to the other side of Mohinder and kneeled down while tossing a panicked look at Peter.

"Do you think The Company did this to him?" Matt spat out angrily.

"I don't know," Peter said. "Maybe—he could have been exposed to any number of things they've cooked up--,"

"I'm not dead yet," Mohinder's weakened voice cut through their conversation.

"Sorry," Peter and Matt muttered together as they moved Mohinder into a more comfortable sitting position against the cupboards.

It took some time for Mohinder to catch his breath, made all the harder by Peter and Matt's scrutinizing eyes, but once he had Mohinder realized he was even firmer in the decision he had made.

"Circumstances being what they are it would be best if you took Molly away," Mohinder rested firm eyes on Matt.

"Well—I—you said it wasn't contagious," Matt replied with surprise, fumbling between wanting to agree and seeking clarity over Mohinder's condition.

"It isn't, but I don't want Molly to find me like this—on the floor, unable to stand up. I don't want to take the chance that one day she'll find me…dead."

Before Matt or Peter could dismiss his worries with empty promises that everything would be okay Mohinder finished his thought with the strength in his voice that indicated there would be no argument.

"This isn't a request Matt."   
  
Twenty letters placed in a cigar box came to mark the span of time, the ever-growing distance. A man of science, Mohinder lived a writer's solitude.

Essentially cut off from the outside world, in the middle of an attack of near convulsions as his insides seemed intent on escaping his body by any means necessary, Mohinder had time to reflect on his own mortality.

He was not so naïve to think he would live forever but death, even in his line of work, always seemed like a more distant endpoint. He considered the idea of dying by some excessively grotesque cough to be insulting. He deserved a better death, one befitting the man he had become by surviving what had already been thrown his way.

Mostly though his thoughts were of getting better, or trying to remember what better felt like since the very notion had become exponentially foreign.

More and more he felt disconnected from the world and came to look at the daily samples sent to him as nothing more than an attempt to placate him rather than do legitimate work.

Peter and Matt phoned him once or twice a week and Mohinder came to dislike the pity dripping from their carefully selected words. Bennet's rare contact annoyed him in its coldly vague concern. Mohinder's reaction to their perceptions of him made him feel like a jerk, after all they did not need to check in on him. They could have written him off as another casualty, dead in the field.

But they didn't. They tried to keep him as much aware of what was going on with their plans while he remained trapped like some fairy tale figure in the tower. Except he was not denied freedom by an evil stepmother but rather by a sickness that could strike him down, cut him to his knees, at any time with no prior warning.

An invisible adversary, it held all the winning cards.

Slowly hope was whittled away but he would not let it break him…yet.

************ ********** ********** *********** **********   
**  
Insomnia wracks havoc on his exhausted mind. It is a mess of nonsensical thoughts, the perfect bookend to weary eyes creating monsters out of shadows and playthings from his past out of beams of light from outside.

Only in the last six nights has the pressurized suffocation given way at some point to relief, air easily willed inside, allowing his eyes to slip closed as much desired sleep took over his body and aching mind.

He hopes it is a sign he is getting better but the days seem unchanged, if not worse, and it feels like he is constantly settling back at square one.

Tonight has seen the requisite tossing and turning, accented by throat clearing coughs, frustrated exaltations and total loneliness.

Mohinder sits up in his bed resting his back against the headboard. Instead of counting sheep he has taken to letting his eyes skip along wayward shadows. Tonight his eyes keep coming back to the far left corner of the room. Each time his gaze stays a little bit longer before moving on. The next time this happens he holds his eyes firm, trying to focus in on the shadows, looking for any—

Movement—

The shadows expand and contract until the darkness reveals a slowly distinguishable figure, there the entire time, before Mohinder's eyes.

"Trouble sleeping?"

Wide eyes reveal Mohinder's shock at his suddenly precarious situation. In an attempt to appear unfazed (_too late_) Mohinder remains still with his jaw clenched firm, eyes transforming into a glare and his arms folded across his chest.

"Why are you here?" Mohinder questions firmly.

Sylar steps patiently around the room, staying close to the walls, while keeping his eyes focused on Mohinder. He considers a witty remark but the circumstances that have brought him here persuade him otherwise.

"To check in on you."

The honest response briefly wipes the stern look from Mohinder's face. He recovers quickly, a necessary side effect of knowing Sylar as long as he has, and sarcastically mutters, "More likely to finish the job."

The expected smirk from Sylar comes, but only after a surprisingly furrowed brow wrinkles his forehead at the callousness of the remark.

"You know me too well," Sylar says, a mixture of ridicule and honesty infusing his tone as he stops and leans with his back against the wall, across from the foot of the bed.

With no sleep in sight for tonight Mohinder resigns himself to whatever game Sylar has in store for them and can only hope his mind does not betray him from lack of focus.

As Mohinder shifts to get up and out of the bed, Sylar's raised right palm tells him not to bother. The middle ground finds Mohinder resettling on top of his comforter, free of the constraints of the blanket, the illusion of equal footing easier to believe.

Mohinder refuses to speak first, wanting Sylar to explain himself of his own volition. A stare down ensues until Sylar lets out a chuckle.

"If I wanted to kill you Mohinder, you'd be dead," Sylar states the obvious.

"And if you wanted to torture me you would do exactly this," Mohinder retorts. "Either way I doubt my well being is a driving motivation for you."

With a hint of amusement twitching on his face that matches his tone Sylar replies, "So cynical Mohinder. What's become of the man I once knew?"

Mohinder rolls his eyes at Sylar's humored inflections.

"I've learned to see the world with a certain clarity," Mohinder says.

"And traded in your sweet idealism?"

Sylar's mockery brings to mind remembrances of wide-eyed awe and hopeful smiles. Mohinder inwardly cringes at his past foolishness.

"I wasn't some naïve child, Sylar—I was—,"

"Curious? Interested? Taken with me and what I could—,"

"You were research! That's all you've ever been."

"Careful, Mohinder. Your nose is almost halfway across the room."

"I was going to say the same thing to you."

"I haven't lied to you in a long time, Mohinder," Sylar says suddenly serious. "Not since you called my bluff. I may have used coercion since then—,"

Mohinder's raised eyebrow does not derail Sylar's admittance.

"—but I haven't lied to you."

Mohinder sighs; unsure if he can argue a point he disturbingly believes to be true. He swings his legs over the side of the bed, letting his feet rest against the floor while resting his arms against his thighs.

Slightly bent over he casts a sideways glance at Sylar and between coughs says, "Then tell me why you're here."

Sylar watches him thoughtfully taking in the sight of the tired and unwell man. Panic at what is happening to Mohinder, a slow but sure culmination of agonizing months, grips Sylar's mind but he sticks to the promise he made himself that he would not show that hand tonight.

"I can take it from you," Sylar vaguely offers.

Mohinder shoots a surprised look at him.

"Take what? I swear if you go anywhere near Molly—,"

"This has nothing to do with the kid!" Sylar forcefully cuts off Mohinder's worried pretense to a ramble.

Sylar walks forward and sits down next to Mohinder. An invisible smile comes of noting that Mohinder does not shift away from their closeness, rather his questioning eyes rest on Sylar cautiously. A small cough rushes forward.

"I can take this sickness from you…permanently," Sylar says quietly as he places his left hand on Mohinder's shoulder.

Reactively Mohinder shrugs it off, not looking away. Undeterred from his reason for being here Sylar again places his hand on Mohinder's tensed shoulder. Again Mohinder shrugs it off, emitting another cough, remaining persistent in his resistance.

"Don't touch me."

"Mohinder—,"

"I said don't touch me!" Mohinder wheezes severely as he feels loss of breath setting in.

Bewildered but angry eyes darken Sylar's face.

"You're sick and I can—,"

"Who did you have to kill to be able to make such a generous offer?" Mohinder gasps between ticklish coughs that become more consistent.

Sylar, inwardly worried yet outwardly unaffected, states, "There's no need to be a martyr. Your death will not be some turning point, remembered—don't kid yourself otherwise, Mohinder. You'll fade away like all the others."

Mohinder's lack of response prompts Sylar to touch him again. But it is not welcome and Mohinder throws it off.

"I said don't—,"

Please not now, Mohinder thinks but the growing barrage has risen up inside him and the tidal wave hits him full force. Constricted lungs, virtually no air, and pain shooting through his body work together to tumble him forward off the bed onto the floor.

As the coughing rips through his chest he unexpectedly feels as if he is seizing. Reduced to all fours on the floor, Mohinder's mind spins wildly. Tears rush to his eyes while his gasping sobs for any available air fill the room. His throat burns from the forced exhalation but the raspy remnants refuse to cease and so the coughs turn into an unrelenting attack.

Mohinder is only vaguely aware of Sylar standing up from the bed and looking down at him.

Reflecting on the image below, Sylar is caught off guard. A moment in which Mohinder is rendered utterly weak, at his complete whimsical disposal does not produce the effect Sylar had previously imagined so many times. Rather the feeling it arouses is quite the opposite. His hidden worry transforms outwardly into anger, a defense mechanism that has not always served Sylar well in the past.

"Yes of course you're perfectly fine," Sylar sneers before verbally ripping into him. "If you could see how pathetic you look—at my feet, my mercy. Is this how you _intellectuals_ show your strength, by dying like helpless creatures, alone and afraid?"

Mohinder's body continues to shake against his will. Sylar kneels on the floor next to him with the rant inside building up out of concern and frustrations. Another spasm of coughs bursts from Mohinder, but now a sprinkling of blood lightly sprays across the floor.

Anger forgotten; Sylar immediately pushes up Mohinder's t-shirt, to just under his arms, and rests his left hand on the sick man's back while placing his right hand flat across Mohinder's bared chest. Sylar manipulates blood capillaries, cells and organs, opening up the passageway until he feels the rush of air flooding into Mohinder's chest following another gasp for breath.

Mohinder turns his face upwards and to the side, an aura of the unexpected on his face.

"Hold on," Sylar whispers the order.

An unexplainable, but very familiar, calm takes over Mohinder's body and he begins to breathe easier. The surprising change in his body collapses Mohinder to his side, into Sylar; the strength he had summoned to survive the coughing fit giving way to much welcome relief. Sylar allows Mohinder's body to rest against his, still keeping his hands on Mohinder's back and chest.

After a minute Mohinder is able to sit back up on his own, remaining in a kneeling position on the floor next to Sylar who is watching him closely.

"How many times have you come to see me before—," Mohinder starts to ask.

"You already know that answer," Sylar replies.

Mohinder brings his right hand to his chest, deeply breathing in and out, and thinks about the most recent week that he has suddenly been able to fall asleep after an initial bout with debilitating restlessness.

"Why—,"

"I can take it out of you, all of it."

"Who did you—,"

"Alejandro," Sylar admits with a trace of irritation suggesting that Mohinder is losing sight of the more important bigger picture.

Mohinder looks at Sylar curiously.

"I was able to remember how to access it. It isn't only Maya's sickness he could take into himself and neutralize—he just never had the chance to realize it," Sylar barely clarifies dryly. "Now let me—,"

"I feel fine," Mohinder quips.

"For now! It's still inside you," Sylar aggressively points out reaching for Mohinder, who in turn shifts further away.

A groan of annoyance escapes Sylar's mouth while he moves to his feet and firmly grips Mohinder, forcing him up and onto the bed. Sitting next to him, Sylar looks about the room while revising his next few words.

"Sickness doesn't look good on you, Mohinder, and it certainly isn't doing anyone any good. You not doing what you could—should be—,"

Sylar rests his eyes back on Mohinder's, trying to find the unstable common ground on which to place his insistence.

"I could take the illness out of you and you could get hit by a car tomorrow. So yes, maybe you are meant to die now…or maybe not. Why won't you give yourself that chance?"

Mohinder finds himself seriously contemplating Sylar's argument and finding a legitimate logic at its core. But the idea of letting, let alone needing, Sylar to save him by way of an innocent person's death is too cruel an irony to fathom any further.

"I am giving myself that chance," Mohinder lies, "But I'm doing it on my own terms."

Mohinder breaks the gaze, unable to keep his fibbing eyes draped in steadfast resolve.

Sylar watches the flood of emotions cascade across Mohinder's face. In the midst of such a delicate situation Sylar cannot help but reminisce how openly Mohinder's feelings can reveal themselves on his face. It is the one unrestricted characteristic that grounds Sylar to the type of honesty he has only ever found in one person. Even when the truth is painful or repulsive or total wonderment it has always been there with few hindrances.

Mohinder eventually levels hardened eyes at Sylar.

"I don't need you, Sylar."

Sylar sucks in a sharp intake of breath at the harshness of Mohinder's words. Standing up he walks a few steps from the bed before turning around and offering up a half smile.

Without warning Mohinder feels a vice grip on his body that refuses to let him budge. Paranoia strikes deep, uncertain about Sylar's hidden intentions; Sylar steps closer.

"No…Don't do this! I don't want this," Mohinder insists to no avail.

"Shhhh," Sylar hushes him. "I'm not doing this for you."

The invisible grip on Mohinder pulls him up to his feet at the same time that Sylar steps in his space. He places his hands gently along Mohinder's neck.

"We've always done things the hard way, Mohinder. I should have known this wouldn't be any different."

There is no chance for Mohinder to debate the point. A sensation begins tingling through his body, moving up from his feet and down from his head simultaneously. The moving wave leaves in its wake a rush of euphoric relief. Soon an intense pressure pulls together at the centre of his chest.

Mohinder's eyes are locked in a hypnotic gaze with Sylar, made all the more overwhelming by the pooling blackness that fills Sylar's eyes while he pulls out whatever has taken unwelcome residence in Mohinder's body.

Feeling the pressure in his chest drawn out of him calls forth a cleanliness that Mohinder had not realized was missing since before he got sick. It also induces a raw gasp, tied to the end of slick infesting death exorcised unflinchingly, expediently.

The final trace of sickness pulled out doubles both men over. Pulled apart and the telekinetic hold dropped, they are left panting in timed sequence. Where Mohinder feels immediate unbound freedom, however, Sylar feels a temporary dry drowning in unparalleled pain that shoots up and down his body.

Recovering first Mohinder quickly moves towards Sylar who is bent over, facing away from him.

"Sylar?" asks Mohinder with concern while placing his hands on Sylar's back.

"I'm fine!" Sylar growls and jumps away while trying to control the inner workings of his body that seems momentarily unconnected to him.

Mohinder can only stare at his back as Sylar's head is hung low and then tilted upward and his hands rest on his hips. Mohinder bites his tongue unsure how to even begin putting into words the enormity of what has just occurred between them, at Sylar's instigation.

Deep breaths accompany Mohinder's hands holding his own chest, focusing in on the steady beat of his now much stronger heart. A long lost smile appears on his face but just as fast he files it away.

Slowly Sylar turns to face him, finally feeling normal again. Before now he had never felt the inclination to use this ability, he had only recalled it upon learning of Mohinder's situation, and now he has no desire to use it again.

His eyes take in a visibly healthier Mohinder. The sight alone makes the pain Sylar intentionally ingested feel worthwhile, justified.

"That's better," Sylar says with amusement in his strained voice. "Now maybe you can focus on more important issues."

"Then my deteriorating health?" Mohinder sarcastically asks half seriously.

"Nothing that couldn't be fixed," Sylar follows up.

Their contemplative gaze lingers until an abrupt knocking at the front door grabs their attention.

"Right on time," Sylar observes causing Mohinder to look at him quizzically. "No chance to rest, Mohinder. They had to find me sometime and what better distraction then you ready to get going again."

"What's going on?" Mohinder demands.

The front door echoes again with the pounding from the other side. Mohinder hears Matt call out for him.

"Inevitability," Sylar answers suggestively. "Don't say I never did anything for you."

"Even if it was against my will?" Mohinder questions sternly, worriedly for what lies ahead, dreading it while anxiously anticipating his reintegration into a world that has been such a significant part of his life in so short a time; a world he has missed.

Sylar smirks knowingly.

"Especially when it's against your will, Mohinder."

The pounding on the front door finally draws Mohinder's quick steps across the apartment. His hands on the lock and doorknob, he casts a look back at Sylar.

There is no one here. 

 


End file.
